My name is Saga, and I am the student ambassador for the Hub for Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Kent. I’m here to tell you about all the things the hub does for students, and to show you how you can get involved, but firstly, I’m going to introduce myself.
I wanted to be a student ambassador because I love talking to students, and find out what inspires them. I really like our university, and I enjoy every chance of talking to students about university opportunities, and how they can get involved.
I have been here at Kent for three years, studying my undergraduate degree in English Literature & Creative Writing, where I was obsessing over modernist literature and postcolonial and feminist theories. I just graduated this summer, and now I’m back at Kent to study a masters of Law, where I want to focus on Environmental Law and Human Rights.
In April this year I entered a Competition with the Hub, their Big Ideas Competition. This is a pitching competition where you get to first submit the outline of your idea in a business plan, and then present your idea to a panel of judges. My business idea, called Todo, is an online platform for volunteering where young people can use their skills to fundraise for environmental causes, gaining employability skills instead of donating money. If you want to have a look at it, why not visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/todoplanetaid/
Me and my business partner won the Big Ideas competition. The prize was a trip to the USA, where we got to pitch our idea in another competition; The Knowledgeworks Global Entrepreneurship challenge at Virginia Tech University. The best thing about this trip was the chance to network with the other competitors, and to hear about their ideas. We also got to work with the CEO of an American company, who gave us business advice.
The main reason that I want to tell students about my experience with the Hub is that before I actually got in contact with them, I didn’t think it would be for me. Students- me included- often think that opportunities like startup competitions, marketing workshops or business advisors, are only there for business students. They really aren’t. When my friend, now business partner, and I were looking at the Big Ideas competition, we were thinking of all the things we thought we couldn’t do. Me, an English student and her, a liberal arts student, can’t do finances. We know nothing about marketing, or technology. Well, it turns out we could learn, and then do, all those things. And you can too, no matter your current background, competences, or what you study.
Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagar%C3%A5dh/ and check out how you can get involved in enterprise and business start-up activities at the Hub for Innovation and Enterprise https://www.kent.ac.uk/enterprise/hub/